The Politics Of The USA Against Refugee Protection Programs
Imagine having a bomb be your alarm, forcing you to wake up from a dreamlike reality and witness your friends being blown up at every corner; being unable to get the visual of battered bodies surrounded by blood out of your mind. Imagine starting off on a journey to safety and encountering many different types of people from different backgrounds and ending having to rethink your route because something dangerous stands in your way.
More than 14 million people have had these scenarios become a reality for them. They’ve been displaced due to various conflicts around the world, such as war, class, religion, ethnic cleansing and political differences. Death and despair have surrounded the world for four years and the United States has only intervened when it benefits them, so why haven’t they opened their great red, white and blue doors to the refugees and migrants that are in need of the great ole American Dream?
Descending into a civil war, Syria was divided into a complex hodgepodge of shifting alliances and territories between the Assad government, rebel groups, and jihadist groups. By May 2011, thousands of people had been displaced and had fled from the war to the surrounding countries. As various locations were being assaulted, people were trying to escape, with thousands of refugees a day crossing borders. The Syria crisis has become the one, if not, the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them. What started as a war between the government and rebels became more complicated as the battle progressed.
As most of the other administration's have recognized, saving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people reflects our values and shows the world what we stand for. Going against this, the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle U.S. refugee protection programs fuels anti-refugee sentiment and exclusionary forms of nationalism in many countries and encourage other states to follow its example. Polices like these will not only damage America, but also the world.
As the administration rails against refugees, it continues to participate in the ongoing global warfare, that perpetuates the refugee crisis. It’s long past time to critically examine our country’s role in forced migration. Since 2001, the U.S. has played a significant role in the displacement of people around the world — especially in the Middle East and neighboring areas, where we’ve almost exclusively pursued a policy of war and militarism. We’ve launched “regime change” operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
Despite the fact that refugees have largely been displaced by wars we’ve helped start, Muslim refugees, in particular, are portrayed in our media and by politicians as criminals, terrorists, financial burdens, etc. We’re taught to fear refugees while simultaneously applauding ourselves as a country that is (supposedly) tolerant of them. Yet Trump has referred to Syrian refugees as “Trojan horses,” as though they left their homes in a covert attempt to undermine the U.S. government. This seems to be the cruel illogic of our wars: to obscure the violence we’ve created and to deny the victims any sort of accountability, much less entry into the country that displaced them from theirs. If we’re serious about trying to help the refugee crisis, then the goal isn’t in the number of refugees we accept or deny – it’s to end the wars that are displacing people.
Turning the refugees into public enemy number one was not a difficult task. 9/11, the killing of the American Ambassador in Benghazi in 2012 and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings increased the panic and fears of the American public. This ongoing backlash movement against the refugees has increased the fears of Americans, making them worry about their comfort zone being spoiled. One moment people are saying refugees deserve, but only when they’re an ocean apart. Yet, the possibility of having them next door unveils feelings of racial prejudice and religious bigotry.
This is troubling since it is the same audience that cheers every time politicians talk about the need to make America great again. While this hysteria may afford short-term electoral success, this attitude will have damaging effects in the long-term for a society that was supposedly built on equality, diversity, and inclusiveness. Turning the refugee drama into hysteria is not a big surprise. What is really worrying is how easily recent history is forgotten.
There has been little discussion about the parallelism between the measures meant to stop the refugees and the internment camps where U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were relocated and incarcerated following the Pearl Harbor bombing, the not-so-distant racial segregation, the intolerance against Muslims, and the ongoing discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities. This tendency for hysteria also goes hand-in-hand with the lack of information and the deep-rooted misconceptions about the reality on the ground. Shifting the perception of the refugees from a defenseless group to perpetrators of terrorist attacks ignores the fact that they are fleeing Syria because the war. They are the primary targets and victims of those involved in the conflict.
Although having terrorists among the Syrian refugees has been a concern from the moment they started crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, this fear is largely unfounded. Hauling up the drawbridge to the refugees is not going to stop threats from coming to America or change the government in Syria; nor will it create a safer place for Americans. It will generate a general fear of the one living next door or standing next in line at the cashier. As for the refugees, the racist and xenophobic discourse will not stop them from fleeing the war. It will just increase the suffering they have been going through since the war started. There’s no way to be certain about anyone coming in, refugee or not, and taking in fewer refugees may reduce risk. With millions of refugee lives at stake, we must ask ourselves: what is the humane thing to do?
